Virtual Innovation

Virtual Innovation

TECHNOLOGY by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

A descendant of a family-run golf tee business and a West Point graduate are hoping their use of wow-like technology in their respective businesses will outlast the real estate slump.

The prolonged Gulf Coast real estate downturn hasn't only been tough on Realtors. Industries that rely on strong home sales, from air conditioning to landscaping to interior design, have also felt the pinch.

But two Sarasota-based companies are finding that real estate may be the perfect place to grow a fledgling business while simultaneously showing off some cutting edge technology.

The one-year-old companies, MotionVR Tours and 3D Architectural Solutions, are finding that a useful and unique product can be an ally in a slumping market. Both firms combine photography and technology for a variety of real estate-related entities and properties, from homes to office buildings to hotels and museums. But the focus is on helping people sell homes.

"People are realizing that with an influx of houses on the market there's an influx of competition," says Brian Zajac, co-founder of 3DAS. "You need something to give you an edge."

MotionVR President Greg Ellis adds that the number of potential clients for his product has gone up in relation to the length of the market slump. Says Ellis: "We work for the Realtor that is looking for ways to innovate."

So far, though, despite an innovative product with a high 'cool factor,' the technology potential has been worth more than actual sales. Tilton declined to disclose MotionVR's revenues or monthly sales growth, only to say he expects the company to become profitable by early 2008.

Zajac says 3DAS has already cleared $200,000 in revenues so far in 2007, doubling the firm's entire output for 2006, its first full year in business. What's more, the firm recently hired employees for new offices it opened in Naples and Fort Lauderdale.

In addition to the challenge of generating consistent sales, both companies also struggle with a common problem in the technology business: Marketplace acceptance.

"The most challenging thing is to get people to understand this is something they've never seen before," Ellis says. "Once we get people to see it and understand it, it's game over and we have them hooked."

Unwrapping technology

MotionVR's hook is an online video tour of a property. But this is no standard video camera-made, 360-degree panoramic virtual montage of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom on the MLS.

Instead, MotionVR has licensed technology that provides a virtual walk-through of a property in one uninterrupted sequence. Internet users can essentially "walk though" any type of room, ascend and descend staircases, go through doorways and even go outside to a lanai or driveway. It's as if the user is actually visiting the property, says Dan Tilton, MotionVR's vice president of sales.

The technology works by using a high-end digital camera, with which a photographer takes a series of 360-degree still pictures. MotionVR's proprietary software then unwraps those images to create the walking feel.

Tilton says the key component of the process is that the system doesn't require what's known as stitching, which is the older, more commonly known way of putting together online video tours. That process, Tilton says, can cause images to blur and distort.

The end result of the MotionVR process has been a wowing of potential customers. Clients who have used, as well as raved, about MotionVR's virtual tours form a diverse roster of Gulf Coast companies. It includes the Ringling Museum of Art and the Indigo Hotel in Sarasota, Fletcher Homes in Tampa, RE/Max Properties, and Realtors from Sarasota-based Michael Saunders & Co.

One Michael Saunders agent recently sold two homes in one day - site unseen - with the MotionVR tours as a key selling tool, a Motion VR spokeswoman says.

Golf tees and cigars

Ellis literally stumbled upon the technology for MotionVR early in 2006, when he was searching online for condos in Whistler, a Canadian ski and resort community near Vancouver. He came upon a Web site displaying the tours, was impressed and subsequently bought the technology, which was created by a 20-something part-time Microsoft programmer.

Since then, Ellis and Tilton have taken MotionVR national, with Sarasota, where Ellis lives, as its headquarters. The company has an army of full-time photographers that take on projects in areas as diverse as Colorado, Maine and Virginia. Tilton is currently seeking another salesperson for the Mississippi-Louisiana region.

Ellis, 42, and Tilton, 35, come to MotionVR through something much smaller, simpler and significantly less technical: Golf tees. Ellis' family ran a golf tee manufacturing company in Tampa, Pride Golf Tees, for nearly 75 years before selling it a few years ago. Both Ellis and Tilton were executives at the company, which also ran a plant in Maine.

And Ellis' Tampa ties go back even further. His great-grandfather on his mother's side, Fletcher Pride, invented a cigar mouthpiece in the early 1900s.

Creating dreams

While MotionVR's technology focuses on the current, taking users through a home or property as it actually looks, 3D Architectural Solutions' technology focuses on the before and after. The company, using what's known as visualization software, creates photo-realistic architectural renderings and animations that can show what a finished home, office or condo development will look like - even one that's only in blueprint form.

"We can create anything you need to see before it has actually been made," says Zajac, the co-founder. "Whatever you dream, we can make."

The company's niche is in creating still pictures that serve as a base for the rest of a real estate project. For example, clients can use the images to show government officials what a particular development will look like when it's complete, Zajac says. Other uses include marketing and identifying any potential design flaws before the project is actually built.

The technology works by using CAD (computer assisted design) software to turn floor plans, blueprints and any other flat two-dimensional drawings into a series of three-dimensional pictures.

And Zajac's partner, Brian Smith, wrote the book on the technology - literally. Smith wrote a 500-page textbook on the technology and how to put it together in a finished product that was published last year.

Smith, 35, and Zajac, 31, met several years ago, when both lived in Naples and were working on independent freelance projects in the 3D industry. Last month, the company merged with another Sarasota-based technology firm, MakeRain Co., which also does marketing and Web site design.

An improved product

Smith graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a degree in aerospace engineering. He later served on active duty with the Florida Army National Guard, and then, after 9/11, he worked with the U.S. Secret Service, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration on programs designed to protect the airspace surrounding Washington D.C.

Smith's passion, though, like Zajac's, was in 3D technology. But in the mid 1990s, after Zajac graduated from Bowling Green State University, the industry was top-heavy and cost prohibitive for a potential entrepreneur. Zajac remembers that a typical workstation to produce high-end 3D images cost as much as $100,000 and was slow, too.

But by 2005, the industry had improved as technological advances led to better, cost-effective results. So Zajac and Smith opened 3DAS and relocated to Sarasota.

Since then, the company has done work for clients such as Fort Myers-based Chico's, Hampton Inn and Sarasota-based Ian Black Real Estate. Zajac and Smith are also currently working on a 3D imaging project for a new facility the FBI is building in Atlanta, as well as a new workout facility for Tampa-based Lifestyle Family Fitness.

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry. Technology, real estate.

Who. MotionVR Tours, Sarasota and 3D Architectural Solutions, Sarasota

Key. Technology firms catering to the real estate industry hope innovative products will be the path to sales in slumping real estate market.